


Pick a star and hold on tight (let's fly away)

by MYuzuki



Series: No matter what’s in front of me (I’ll keep fighting til I’ve won) [52]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, How Do I Tag, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Riddles, remember how I said I was going to make up a tomb and a royal arm?, this is that drabble ;D
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:41:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27760933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MYuzuki/pseuds/MYuzuki
Summary: It's probably strange, Noctis realizes, for most of what he knows about his grandfather to be information he learned in school.
Relationships: Noctis Lucis Caelum & Everyone
Series: No matter what’s in front of me (I’ll keep fighting til I’ve won) [52]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1897525
Comments: 6
Kudos: 66





	Pick a star and hold on tight (let's fly away)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, everybody! Welcome back! Thank you as always for the fabulous feedback on the last installment, you're all amazing and wonderful. <3
> 
> Anyway, welcome to Drabble # 52! In which we return to the road-trip portion of the story, this time switching from Luna's haven subplot to Noct's Royal Arms subplot.

**Pick a star and hold on tight (let's fly away)**

* * *

It's probably strange, Noctis realizes, for most of what he knows about his grandfather to be information he learned in school.

The subject of Mors Lucis Caelum and his reign is a fairly controversial one, despite the fact he'd held the throne for only twenty years (a short reign compared to his successor Regis, although ultimately it was an average amount of time spent ruling for a Lucian monarch given the strain of maintaining the Wall).

His most widely debated action had been, of course, his decision to downsize the Wall, pulling it back to surround only Insomnia rather than all of Lucis.

Since that decision had left the outer provinces vulnerable to attack to attack from Imperial forces, Mors is not held in very high esteem in those regions; he is, in fact, pretty universally reviled, with some of that disgruntlement transferring to Noctis's own father when Regis had risen to power after Mors had passed away.

(Which doesn't seem fair to Noctis; his dad hadn't been the one to shrink the Wall and he'd done his best to protect his people despite the circumstances being stacked against him.)

In any case, opinion on Mors is mixed, and truth be told Noctis himself is rather conflicted on the subject of his grandfather. On the one hand, he doesn't understand why the man had pulled back the Wall and left so many people vulnerable to attack. On the other hand, a small selfish part of him is grateful, because it meant that his dad had inherited a Wall that was easier to maintain; it still ate away at Regis's life-force to keep it up, but because it covered only Insomnia instead of all of Lucis, he didn't burn out so quickly, had in fact sat upon the throne for almost three decades, one of the longest reigns in Lucian history.

(And wasn't that sad and absurd, that out of over a hundred monarchs almost none of them lived past the age of forty, because of the cost they paid to keep the Wall going)

The tomb, once they reach it, is surprisingly simple, at least on the outside; the entryway is set into a hillside, the granite carved into clean sweeping lines that exude a simple sort of elegance that's nothing like some of the more ostentatious Lucian stonework that Noctis has seen before.

He finds himself wondering if Mors himself had commissioned his royal tomb as such, or if Regis had opted for a more simplistic tomb for his father out o deference to the fact that most Lucian citizens wouldn't have approved of using exorbitant amounts of money to craft a fancy tomb for a man that they felt had failed to protect them.

 _I guess it doesn't really matter_ , Noctis muses, walking up to the thick granite doors that are blocking his entry.

He goes to shove open the doors so they can can go inside, grab his grandfather's Royal Arm, and move on to their next destination.

But the doors don't budge.

Noctis scowls at the unyielding slabs of stone, then jumps back with a curse as a flash of magic erupts from the doors, shimmering light coalescing into six lines of elegant flowing script

"What the hell?" he mutters, craning his neck back to squint at the lettering as is friends come up beside him.

"Fascinating," Luna murmurs, then reads the writing aloud, her melodious voice filling the air.

_What does man love more than life,_

_Hate more than death and mortal strife,_

_That which contented men desire,_

_The poor hate, the rich require;_

_The miser spends, the spendthrift saves,_

_And all men carry to their graves?_

Silence falls upon the group for a moment once Luna's recitation is complete, until the quiet is broken by Ignis as he steps forward to peer at the glowing words with obvious interest. "It's a riddle," he remarks, sounding almost delighted by the prospect. "Presumably, once we solve it the seal keeping the tomb closed will dissipate, and we'll be able to go inside."

Another pause, as they all consider that, then, "What kind of Mines of Moria bullshit," Prompto mutters, even as he pulls out his camera to take a picture of the giant magical riddle that apparently serves as a lock on the tomb of Mors Lucis Caelum.

Noctis snorts before he can stop himself, ducking his head to hide his amusement. "Remind me to yell at my dad whenever we get back to Insomnia," he says, because even if this little game was Mors's idea and not Regis's, it stands to reason that his dad has to at least _know_ about it, since he'd overseen the construction of this tomb.

So he knows about it, and did not so much as even throw a hint in Noct's direction.

"Riddles aren't really my area of expertise," Gladio says now, crossing his arms as he surveys the shimmering letters with an expression that's somewhere between irritated and amused. "Iggy?"

Ignis gives a thoughtful hum, a faint smile tugging up the corners of his mouth before he turns to look at Noctis. "Seeing as gathering the Royal Arms is _your_ quest, Noct," he says, "it seems only fair that you be the one to solve the riddle."

Noctis stares at his friend in growing horror. "What? Specs, no!"

"Come now," Ignis says, tone plainly amused now. "It's not such a difficult riddle, once you know what to look for."

Noctis makes a face at him. " _Iggy_ ," he groans. "Come on, have mercy on me, you know I'm no good at this sort of thing."

"You don't have the patience for this sort of thing, you mean," Ignis corrects, rolling his eyes ever-so-slightly.

Noctis just huffs at him, stuffing his hands in his pockets at he turns to glare at the glowing riddle splayed across the doors of the tomb. "If you answer the riddle," he says after a long moment of consideration, "I will eat an entire plate of vegetable stir-fry without complaining. But no carrots," he tacks on hastily, because bribery or not he has to draw the line _somewhere_ and carrots are disgusting.

Luna gives a startled laugh that she tries to muffle in her hands, eyes dancing with amusement as she grins at him. "Noctis!" she says, clearly trying to chide him but too entertained to really pull it off.

"What?" he asks innocently, struggling to keep the smirk off his own face.

"Very well," Ignis says briskly, before any of them can say anything else. "Your offer is acceptable, and the answer is nothing."

"The answer is _what_?" Prompto asks, glancing back and forth between Ignis and the riddle with a faintly confused expression.

"Nothing," Ignis replies simply.

"Nothing," Noctis repeats, then takes another step away from the doors as the script of the riddle flares with light once more before vanishing entirely, the thick stone slabs of granite swinging open with a loud creak that echoes off the nearby hillsides.

"Looks like we'll be eating heaps of veggies for dinner," Gladio comments, slanting Noct a shit-eating grin that makes him groan.

"Shut up," the Crown Prince of Lucis grumbles, elbowing his Shield in the side before he turns and strides for the now-open entryway of his grandfather's tomb. "Let's just grab the stupid sword or spear or whatever it is and get going, okay?"

"Somehow I doubt it will be that simple," Ignis remarks, but lifts his hands in surrender when Noctis shoots him a warning look. "Or perhaps it will be," he amends.

Retrieving Mors's Royal Arm, as it turn out, is actually that simple. Contrary to what Noctis as been expecting, there's no horde of guardian monsters that they need to fight through or any strange anti-grave-robber trap they need to bypass. There are some sigils etched into the stonework here and there, presumably protective spells of some sort to keep daemons away from the resting place of a Lucian king, but beyond that it's just…a tomb.

Noctis finds his grandfather's resting place in the center of it all, and for a long moment he just stares down at the stone carving of a face he doesn't recognize, something that might be muted grief or regret or some strange combination of the two twisting in his chest as he looks at the likeness of man he'd never known but should have.

Then he reaches out to the weapon held in the carving's hands; it's a saber, the blade long and curved and with a wickedly sharp edge despite the decades spent sitting in a desolate tomb gathering dust, and bright blue magic flickers around it as Noctis grasps it, the familiar burn of Lucian magic sparking in his veins as the sword reacts to his presence.

 _Sabre of the Steadfast_ , the etching along the hilt reads, and Noctis frowns at that, because _Mors_? Steadfast?

By definition steadfast means 'resolutely or dutifully firm and unwavering" and that's not precisely what Noctis would have said if asked to describe his grandfather.

Then again, he'd never known the man, had he? So perhaps he wasn't the right person to judge.

Perhaps is was Mors's firm resolve when it came to pulling back the Wall that had earned him that moniker, or his sense of duty to the people of Insomnia, or his complete and utter confidence in his decisions being the right path forward despite how quickly and viciously public opinion had turned against him.

Noctis honestly has no idea what it could be that makes his grandfather 'steadfast', but in the end he supposes that it doesn't really matter. He has his grandfather's sabre now, and that's why he'd come here in the first place.

Even so, he can't help but linger longer than is strictly necessary, looking down at the carving once more, struggling to commit the lines of his grandfather's likeness to memory because other than a few faded photographs in his father's study and one formal snapshot from his tenth grade history book he's never seen the man.

Eventually, however, he pulls himself away, because he can feel the way his friends are shooting him faintly worried looks and it's not like standing here staring at his grandfather's tomb is going to get them any closer to their long-term goals of fixing the havens and collecting the other Royal Arms. So he banishes the sabre to his Armiger with a thought and turns towards the exit.

Unfortunately, whatever magic had been released out into the atmosphere when they'd first unlocked the tomb seems to have attracted some unwanted guests: a bandersnatch comes leaping at his face the second he sets foot outside the tomb, and he barely manages to summon his own sword in time to parry the attack and fling the monster to the side. And it's not alone, either; a second bandersnatch (this one somewhat scragglier-looking) is prowling back and forth nearby, saliva dripping from its jaws as it snarls, its beady eyes tracking his every movement.

The first bandersnatch recovers its footing and comes charging towards him again, only to be thwarted in its attack when a trident comes flying through the air to stab into its flank. The bandersnatch goes down with an agonized yowl, and Luna's there a moment later to yank her weapon out of its body with a queasy but determined expression.

"Are you alright, Noctis?" she asks, blond hair spilling loose from the messy bun she'd had it in earlier.

"Yeah," he says, grinning when he catches sight of the awed expressions on his friends faces as they look back and forth between the Princess of Tenebrae and the dead bandersnatch on the ground. "I'm doing great."

Then the second bandersnatch attacks, apparently trying to avenge its fallen cohort, and things devolve into chaos again for a moment, right up until Prompto gets in a well-placed head-shot on the beast that sends it crumpling to the ground in a twitching heap.

They're all sweaty and panting for breath by the time the dust settles, but they're also in sync in a way that almost defies description, all of them on the same wavelength in that unique way that only seems to happen in the dead of battle, when you're throwing yourself headfirst at a dangerous beast and trusting that the people with you will have your back.

They take a moment to catch their breath and regain their bearings (and in Prompto's case, take a selfie with Luna as he proclaims that blondes clearly _do_ have more fun), and then make their way back to where the Regalia is parked; they pile in, and before long the tomb is little more than a speck in the rear-view mirror as they speed towards their next destination.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I don't know if anyone actually cares but I had to refer to the FFXV timeline and do actual math to figure out how old certain people were at certain times and what that meant for the average lifespan of a Lucian monarch. Regis was 23 when he first ascended to the throne, o by the time FFXV starts he's been ruling for 27 years (making him fifty). Going by this pattern, I extrapolated slightly, and basically headcanoned that Mors ascended at around the same age (early or mid twenties) but by that time already was married with a kid (Regis, who was maybe like 3 at the time? Idk). Anyway, long story short, Mors was only king for like twenty years but the things he did during those years (like scaling back the Wall) were super controversial which is why people talk about him a lot in Lucian history classes despite the fact his reign was actually on the shorter side of average when compared to other monarchs.


End file.
